Studio: international art (41.1907)

Reviews and Notices

exception the acumen shown by the Flemish writer
is never at fault. His essay is a masterpiece alike
of literature and of criticism, and it was a happy
thought to bind up with it Stevens' own " Im-
pressions sur la Peinture," which appeared in 1866.
The forty-two plates accompanying the text include,
with reproductions of a number of acknowledged
masterpieces, two or three interesting studies ; great
care appears to have been bestowed on the get-up
of the volume generally, and it may be commended
as a worthy memorial of a remarkable personality
who is not likely soon to be forgotten.

History of Scottish Seals. By Walter de Gray-
Birch, LL.D., F.S.A. Vol.11. (Stirling: Eneas
Mackay.) \2S. 6d. net.—As full of scholarly
research as its predecessor, this, the second
volume of a very important work on the seals
used in Scotland from the eleventh to the seven-
teenth century, treats of ecclesiastical and monastic
examples only, giving a large number of excellent
reproductions of typical examples showing the
designs on both sides. The learned author, who
was for many years secretary and treasurer of the
British Archaeological Association, and worked from
1865 to 1902 on the classification of the charters,
seals, and MSS. in the British Museum, is a true
enthusiast on the subject of heraldic devices, and
has in many cases thrown fresh light on their
original meaning. Unfortunately, actual specimens
of the elaborate monastic seals, with their complex
symbolism, are extremely rare, for they were nearly
all destroyed at the dissolution of the religious
houses, but impressions of many of them having
been preserved, the continuity of the chronological
record of Dr. Birch has been maintained. Specially
interesting are the seals, dating from 1200, of the
great Abbey of Dunfermline ; that of the Chapter
of Jedburgh, with the Coronation of the Virgin on
one side and the Salutation on the other; and that
of the Collegiate Church of St. Bridget at Aber-
nethy, bearing on the reverse the figure of the
patroness, attended by her cow, and the legend, In
domo Dei ambulavimus cum concensu ; but every
page of the book is full of fascination, the writer
combining with his antiquarian lore an eloquent
style and true aesthetic feeling.

The Cities oj Spain. By Edward Hutton.
With twenty-four illustrations in colour. By A.
WallaceRimington, A.R.S.A., R.B.A. (London:
Methuen.) ys. 6d. net.—Unlike many of the colour
books that have recently been published, in which
the letterpress is merely supplementary to the illus-
trations, this new work from the pen of the accom-
plished author of " The Cities of Umbria" and
84

" Italy and the Italians " is'a piece of true literature,
in which the very spirit of the scenes described has
been caught and reproduced. Mr. Hutton knows
and loves Spain well; he is in sympathy with her
rugged, and often forbidding scenery, and her grand
but strangely unsatisfying architecture, and calls up
picture after picture that enchain the attention as
completely as do the excellent water-colour draw-
ings of his collaborator, amongst which the best
are the Ambulatory, Burgos Cathedral, the Court of
Oranges, Cordova, and Outside the City Walls,
Seville. With the proud and reserved but, to those
who understand them, responsive people of the
Peninsula he is also thoroughly in touch. Even the
actors and spectators in the bull-fights he loathes
are fairly judged by this just critic, and he charges
the Englishmen who hunt the stag with hypocrisy
for condemning them, pointing out that in both
cases " it is death they are set on," and adding the
pregnant remark, " No man adventures his life
against the life of the stag, nor is the skill of the
hunter set against the strength and fury of the deer,
as is that of the toreador against the bull."

The Life of William Blake. By Alexander
Gilchrist. With an Introduction by W. Graham
Roisertson. (London: John Lane.) 10s.6d.net.
—Few artists have been subjected to greater
extremes of criticism than William Blake, who to
some appears as a heaven-inspired genius whose
every utterance in literature or art must be received
with reverence, whilst to others he is a mad en-
thusiast, smiled at and tolerated simply because
of his irresponsibility. In the Preface to the
new edition of the famous " Life" by Alexander
Gilchrist (which except that it has been enriched
by numerous reproductions of typical works by
Blake, including some not hitherto published, is
practically unaltered) Mr. Graham Robertson has
skilfully hit off the happy medium. He admits
frankly that Blake was often unequal both in his
art and in his literary conceptions, deprecates
the exaggerated laudation of fugitive sketches and
writings that were never intended to be taken
seriously, but claims that the "Inventions of the
Book of Job" were alone enough to place their
author amongst the immortals. He mourns over
what he calls the "holocaust of Tatham, an angel
of the Irvingite Church—a destroying angel, indeed
—that placed a final barrier between the poet and
the world," but declares that "for the lover of
perfect poetry Blake's fame, will live for ever in
the ' Poetical Sketches,' the 1 Songs of Innocence
and Experience,' and the 'Book of Thel.'"

Inventaire General des Dessins du Mus'ee du